Cemetery News

Colombo -
Piyasri Gunasena rarely digs more than one grave a day at the Madampitiya cemetery in Sri Lanka's capital. On Tuesday, two days after the deadly Easter bomb attacks, he had dug 10 by mid-afternoon.

Adelaide -
From the graveside to the dinner plate, olive oil is being harvested from centuries-old trees at a Australian cemetery in a bid to shake up people's attitudes towards death and burial sites.

Poland -
From inside the tiny baroque Skull Chapel in southern Poland, Father Romuald Brudnowski offers up a prayer for thousands of nameless individuals whose bones line the walls of an unusual place of worship.

Varsovia -
Wielding axes, rakes and shears, young European volunteers with sweat on their brows have been sprucing up the continent's largest Jewish cemetery, a Warsaw site largely neglected since the Holocaust.

Najaf -
The Valley of Peace cemetery in the Shiite holy city of Najaf is filled with mourners paying tribute to "martyrs" who have fallen in battles to expel the Islamic State group from Iraq's cities.

Mytilene -
Shrouded in white, the little girl lies on the ground in the paupers' section of Lesbos cemetery. Strangers attend her burial, and she will forever rest next to an unknown woman who died with her.

Toronto -
The McMichael Gallery is home to some great artwork painted by the Canadian Group of Seven. It's broadened its scope with live music concerts, a photography exhibition, and an upcoming art installation with the former "Naomi Campbell of the art world."

A light-hearted look at the odd events happening in the world. Today includes a father with 98 children, a gorilla playing with kittens, and a look at the reactions of those who think the world is ending.

Pending a legal change, British citizens may not have anywhere to be buried when they die in the near future. An extensive BBC survey recently found that many burial sites will run out of space within a decade, while some are already out of space.

A 42-year-old homeless Serbian man Bratislav Stojanovic has lived in an old abandoned cemetery in Nis, a city in southern Serbia for more than 15 years. The homeless man converted one of the underground tombs in the cemetery into a home.

While visiting Arlington National Cemetery in October, Lindsey Stone snapped a picture of herself "disrespecting" the tomb of the Unknown Soldier," by giving the finger and pretending to yell next to a sign that says, "Silence and Respect."

Crisfield -
After wreaking devastation in New York City, Atlantic City and along the East Coast, Hurricane Sandy departed with an eerie Parthian shot for Halloween—it caused coffins to rise from their graves in a cemetery in Maryland.

Bushnell -
Less than a week after U.S war veterans were honored in Memorial Day celebrations, the discovery that a World War II veteran was buried in a shallow grave at the Florida National Cemetery in a cardboard box has sparked outrage in Congress.

Authorities in Russia have made the gruesome discovery of 29 mummified bodies being kept in a man's apartment in the town of Nizhny Novgorod along the Volga River. The corpses were all females and had been exhumed from local cemeteries.

Around $37,000 worth of trash was found in one America's most pristine veteran cemeteries, the Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery near Milwaukee. The 105-acre cemetery had recently earned an award for its beautiful appearance in April.